Bend or Break
by AllWeHave
Summary: Not all Slytherins are happy to receive summons from the Dark Lord. Warnings for character death and spoilers for Half-Blood Prince.


To Bend or To Break

_I'm only sixteen this isn't fair_, she thought hotly.

_Oh darling who ever told you that the world was fair_, her mother's cruel voice darkened her mind like thick black smoke. She kicked through the brambles and branches avoiding the main path to the lake in hopes of not getting caught.

A letter had arrived for her that morning and she'd barely managed to contain her rage through the day- speaking only brusquely to her professors and behaving outright violently towards anyone who ventured into her path. The sharp warning voice in her mind, sounding suspiciously like her older brother, telling her she could not afford to appear distraught by this news had only fueled her anger.

The letter had only contained a few short sentences, it was sent in the jubilant hand of her father, she was to be presented to the Dark Lord allowed to show her allegiance and if deemed worthy, gifted with his mark.

The words had seared through her mind, injected themselves into her bloodstream, where they had rushed through her body, wrenching her guts, turning her organs cold.

For a single brilliant moment at the breakfast table in the great hall she had rejoiced, she would turn seventeen soon and she could fly from her parents, hide herself from the villain they worshiped. She had flown briefly on wings of hope and happiness… and then she read the last line.

_You will have the joy of being in our Master's presence on the fifth of July._

July 5th, trapped only one short week before her birthday.

If she ran before turning seventeen her parents would simply use the trace on underage magic to find her, drag her home and 'punish' her until she begged to be allowed to pledge her life to anyone, Dark Lord, Muggle, house elf, whatever would get her parents to see she was obedient.

For one foolish moment she had thought _I could pledge myself to the Dark Lord, accept the Dark Mark and then run_.

The very thought still caused her to shiver violently. She didn't know for the details of punishments handed out by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but she supposed they would make her father's punishments seem like child's play.

No, running from Him would be less than useless and very possibly suicidal, suicide by Bellatrix Lestrange.

She didn't want to die.

Impotent rage coursed through her body, it was hopeless- resistance was utterly futile. She would be a Death Eater or she would be dead.

She bent over at the waist suddenly unsure if she would collapse or simply litter the beach with her dinner. Her breathing pounded in her head like a freight train. She stumbled forward, tripped on a tree root and then crawled until she reached the imagined safety of the lake. She lay by the water on the gritty sand of the shore for a long while, her legs shaking too much to bother with rising.

Face red with rage, her eyes grew bleary with stupid tears that she refused to shed. But the tears fell anyway regardless of her will, she swiped at them thinking of how symbolic they seemed, how nothing at all was in her control.

Then she realized that if she chose the Dark Lord she would never have control over her own life again. Her mind wandered into the future on its own accord.

_She saw her dark brown eyes stared back at her out of the holes in the Death Eater mask, not a trace of their softness or compassion remained. Muddled scenes of torture and murder drifted past, her own cherished Oak wood wand stained with the blood of countless Muggles. _

_She would marry the man her new Master chose for her, a man she wouldn't love, a man she wouldn't want to touch her. Her children would be born from rape, bred to serve a Lord who was more snake than man. She would raise her children knowing that mercy would have her kill them in their sleep rather than let them reach adulthood._

She felt it already, the beginning of the process that would make her a monster. She saw, with absolute clarity, pieces of herself falling off, shattering on the ground. She knew soon a new armor of fear and cruelty would replace the old bits that had made her human.

Rage and a lack of hope so strong it tore the soul overwhelmed her. She couldn't breath, couldn't think, couldn't feel anything other than the steel bars around her rib cage, crushing her lungs. She felt then that her chest had burst open, bones, blood and meat exposed to the night. She felt her racing heart spilling precious life blood onto the soil. Felt her lungs, two cage birds, fluttering like mad to escape their cages.

A cry like that of a wounded beast tore through her lips and she broke down into gulping sobs.

It came to her mind in that moment that she could cry herself out send everything that made her Millie into her tears. Those tears would pass onto the beach and flow into the lake. In her mind's eye she saw herself living on as a shapeless spirit. For the rest of eternity she would mindlessly bob along with the Merfolk and the Giant Squid all that made her Millicent Bulstrode would live on in peace and harmony leaving only her hollow shell to do those terrible things.

As her tears finally dried she began to laugh, short hiccupping chortles.

_Honestly_ she thought, _being sixteen really only excused so much in the way of melodramatics. _

_The world isn't fair. _

_It had always been a right bastard to her in the past why would it change now?_

The Bulstrode family counted themselves among the oldest, but also the poorest. They had the purest of blood, but very little political clout.

Millie had often heard herself described as thick, cumbersome, and socially awkward, with an unrefined tendency towards physicality rather than magic. She hadn't even managed to be beautiful as compensate for her other flaws.

But she had dealt with it all for years.

She had long since learned to bend, bend to the will of her parents, bend to the whims of richer, more connected classmates, to bow down when pressured, giving way to others rather than remain rigid and unyielding.

And she remained whole while watching others crumble under pressure. For years she chose to bend and sway, she chose to skim along top of the darkness to keep from falling into it and she survived because of this.

Bending would not help her now however.

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wanted nothing more than for her to bow, to bow to his dominion over her life and magic. This time however, she would break if she chose to bow.

If she chose Death over Death Eater then bending away from it would be counter productive. This one time she could not bow to the pressure but it would allow her to remain unbroken- in spirit at least.

She sat at the edge of the lake for what felt like an eternity, puffing away absentmindedly on a cigarette she had nicked from a seventh year. Through the smoke it came to her, her only plan, and with it her only hope.

Professor Dumbledore.

Everyone says _He_ is still scared to confront Dumbledore.

All she needed to do was have Dumbledore hide her, just for a short time, then she could run.

She knew she wasn't that important really, her pride had long since taken that hit. She also knew that with a war in England He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named would have more important things to do than chase a scared teenager across the continent, especially when he wouldn't have a Dark Mark to aid in tracking her down.

And if she had that extra week to turn seventeen her parents couldn't use the trace on underage magic.

All she had to do was convince Dumbledore to protect her for that one week.

She would go see Dumbledore. Dumbledore could offer her some protection from the coming storm, Dumbledore could give her some place to hide from the tempest that was the Lord Voldemort.

With her mind made up and her spirit lighter than it had been in a very long time she all but sprinted back to the castle. She could taste the sweetness of freedom within her grasp.

The castle stood only a few hundred feet from her when she saw something fall from the top of the Astronomy Tower. She ran towards the tower feverishly, legs pumping harder than they ever had before.

There at the foot of the tower lay Professor Dumbledore, broken.

She could only stare, mind blank, limbs numb, wordless as others ran onto the scene asking her what had happened.


End file.
